Blog- TOXIC PLAYGROUNDS

You may not think the smallest things such as kids playing at playgrounds couldn’t be dangerous. Think again, in New Orleans Howard Mielke of Tulane University's Center for Bioenvironmental Research found arsenic, which is an element that has a metallic luster and vaporizes when heated. While searching for arsenic with a portable X-ray fluorescence they found 36 percent of the sites visited were contaminated and only 38 were examined. Researchers toke a bit of soil and mimic the pH of a child’s stomach. I am shocked that this hasn’t been discovered before, many children must have gotten sick because of arsenic on a children’s playground. After examining the soil Mielke says, “is that the median arsenic concentration was on the order of 57 parts per million. This compares with the median of 1.5 ppm in soils generally throughout the city of New Orleans.” when the school was informed with the dangers for the arsenic they replaced the tainted chips with untreated bark. Luckily this problem was found and treated before it got worse. This shows that it is worthwhile surveying play areas.

source- http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/49960/title/Toxic_playgrounds

Extra Credit- science connection

I Have resently started reading My Sisters Keeper which i believe connects to science.In the novel Anna was born to save her older sister Kate who is diagnosed leukemia. For Anna's parents to get the perfect matched child to Kate, scientists matcher the mothers eggs and the fathers sperm to create the specific combination of the genetic material to match Kate. For Kate to survive she had to take things form Anna, such as blood, white cells, stem cells, and her bone marrow. Anna has undergone many surgeries and transfusions so her older Kate can survive .this novel connects to science because Kate has to borrowing many body needs, in order to survive, in the book they use scientific terms. this is a very indulging story, I recommended it to anyone once you start reading you cant stop. I hope you enjoy it.

largest web-spinning spider discovered

A newly discoverd spider web is the largest in a class of web spinners. These species of golden orb - weaver are found South Africa. These are newly described spiders, and now are considerer larges web spinner. these species of spiders are now called Nephilla Komaci.It spins webs of up to 1 metre in diameter. I find this amusing considering these great spinners weren't even know as spiders. I am surprised that this was just recently found, but i believe that this is only because they are endangered. There maybe even better spinners that are yet to be discovered

respond blog from Tinkerbell

The author of my blog respond is tink3. Tink3 researched the genetic disorder Adrenoleukodystrophy.The first thing i learned is that this disease was found in 1993 by Haperfield and Spielier. It was interesting that this disease only affects boys, but females can hold the gene. There are treatments which can slow the disease. sadly, this disease may cause death. This blog was well written.

klinefelter syndrome = Genetic disorders

After researching on klinefelter syndrome I realized how this disease doesn't only effect the patient but the people around them. The genetic disease klinefelter syndrome affects the male sexual activity because it effects male hormones. Klinefelter syndrome is a disease that only effected the male population. In the us only 1 out of 500 men are influenced by this disease. The world population is 1 in 1000 men. Klinefelter syndrome is disease that was discovered in 1942 by 24 year old doctor Jacobs. Symptoms and compilations of this disease include enlarged male breast, male infertility, tallness, and speech difficulty. This disease can be treated by testosterone therapy. the morality of this disease are Danish boys and men. on a molecular level there are extra male chromosomes. In trying to develop new treatments the effect on the male sexual development needs to be examine and understudy first.this diseas makes me feel upset cause it can happen to anyone.